In 1942, a Chinese guy fell into the Atlantic Ocean and survived for 133 days by drinking bird blood and eating sharks. A man passing by on a merchant ship saw his appearance and shouted: "Don't help!" ”
In 1942, at a critical moment when the Sino-Japanese War was in full swing, a young Chinese man named Pan Lian worked on a Sino-British trading ship "Batemon".
Pan Lian was born in an ordinary poor family, and his father got him this job as a waiter on a ship through connections, although the treatment was average, but for Pan Lian at that time, it was already very good, working on the ship can learn some skills as a sailor, but also reduce the financial burden of the family.
Pan Lian is introverted and likes to read, and during the long and boring voyage on board, most of the crew either work or sleep, while Pan Lian often reads alone on deck to pass the time.
He especially likes to read some books on survival in the wild, and feels that the knowledge in the books is very practical and interesting, and no one expected that this will play an extremely key role in Pan Lian's survival in drifting in the future.
In November 1942, while sailing in the Pacific Ocean, the Bertmund was attacked by the German Navy, and the hull was heavily bombed, flooded and quickly sunk.
The people on the boat abandoned the ship to escape, Pan Lian, with his familiarity with the structure of the ship, found a life raft at the last moment and sat on it, and as the Betermon completely sank under the surface of the sea, Pan Lian also began a long rafting journey with the life raft.
After checking the reserves on the life raft, Pan Lian breathed a sigh of relief, and there was a small amount of fresh water, chocolate, canned food and biscuits on the raft, enough to support survival for a while.
The next key is to find a consistent source of food and fresh water before the food is eaten, and Pan Lian decides to use the knowledge in the book to save himself.
In order to obtain fresh water, he built a simple awning from the materials on the raft, which could collect rainwater when it rained, and in terms of food, he made the planks and ropes that could be used on the raft into simple fishing tools, and began to catch fish in the sea.
At first, he harvested small fish, and later he removed nails from the raft to make harpoons, so that the harvest was much richer, but without vegetables and fruits to supplement vitamins, Pan Lian's health continued to deteriorate, his skin blistered and his lips cracked.
More than a month later, the life raft suffered a strong typhoon, and after the typhoon, the raft was badly damaged and the awning was missing. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that freshwater sources have been cut off.
At this time, Pan Lian remembered what was written in the book that you can drink bird blood to temporarily quench your thirst, so he used fish offal as bait to catch birds, and unfortunately the bait attracted sharks, but Pan Lian was not discouraged, and finally subdued it after fighting with the shark and obtained food.
After many days of drifting at sea, coupled with the harsh environment, Pan Lian's health deteriorated, and what made him even more desperate was that once a merchant ship passed by, the crew saw his Chinese face and turned away, ignoring his call for help.
Fortunately, before his body reached its limit, Pan Lian found that the color of the sea water became lighter, which meant that the land was not far away. Finally, the life raft drifted off the coast of Brazil and was rescued by fishermen.
The local government was shocked to hear that Pan Lian had survived the sinking of the Bettmon, and after statistics, he drifted at sea for 133 days, creating a miracle in the history of human survival.
This shows Chinese strong will to survive and makes other countries stop looking down on Chinese. Today, many years later, China's international status is very different from that time. Pan Lian's story is still used as a model in many countries to promote survival knowledge, which can be said to be a contribution to the country and the world.
